John D. Archbold Papers
Collection
Identifier: Mss-0261
The papers include correspondence, drawings, maps, motion picture films, photographs, reports, and a scrapbook.
The papers date from 1934-1993 with the bulk of the collection dating from 1947-1991. There is an album of photographs documenting the production of banana fiber, circa 1940s as well as 27 related to the Prince Ruperts Head and Cabrits area and a few other photographs.
The papers were transferred to Special Collections after Archbold's death in no particular order but distinguished by their content of having something to do with his plantation and interests in Dominica. They have been arranged in an alphabetical subject file with items within folders in chronological order.
The papers document Archbold's various business and agricultural endeavors on his Dominican plantations as well as research that he sponsored related to commercial agriculture and a wide variety of studies of the island's fauna. There are records about efforts to develop a banana fiber plant and a variety of studies sponsored in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution.
Oversize material includes maps of the plan of crops on the Archbold plantations, and a variety of drawings of machinery to be used in processing crops and renovating buildings. There are several maps documenting historic fortifications at Prince Ruperts Head in 1799 and of the island of Dominica in 1776 and in the 1980s.
There are two flags of Dominica and Archbold's Clemson Founders plaque.
John Dana Archbold was born on July 10, 1910 at Bar Harbor, Maine the son of Anne Mills Archbold and Armar Desrolles Saunderson. His maternal grandfather, John Dustin Archbold, was the first president of Standard Oil of New Jersey and his paternal grandfather; Colonel Saunderson was a leader of the Unionist Party in Britain. Raised on a dairy farm in England, Archbold acquired a life long love of agriculture and the rural life. Educated at Sidwell Friends School and Choate School, he studied engineering at the University of Geneva and Princeton University. With this training he studied the internal combustion engine and developed a rotary combustion engine that he patented. As a young man Archbold developed a love of sailing and adventure that included sailboat racing across the Atlantic from Newport, Rhode Island to Bergen, Norway in 1934. The following year he crewed on a schooner that went on a treasure hunt in the Caribbean that included visiting Dominica.
Archbold came to love the island and bought a plantation, Springfield in 1935. He began as a producer of citrus crops but over the next fifty years grew a variety of other crops including bananas and cocoa as well as swine and poultry. After a lifetime of supporting a variety of agricultural enterprises on Dominica including a juice cannery, a banana fiber plant, and cocoa production, Archbold recognized that the island lacked the economies of scale necessary to successfully compete in the commercial production of almost all topical products. This convinced him of the value of Dominica as a center for tourism and the preservation of its unique topical ecological features.
Archbold served in the US Navy during World War II and worked in the Office of Strategic Services. He served on the staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten in the China-India-Burma Theater. After the war, he participated in a natural science exploration with his mother Anne Archbold who had an ocean going junk built in China for exploration in Southeast Asia.
A noted philanthropist, Archbold was a member of the Board of Trustees of Syracuse University from 1976 until his death. He served on boards of companies including the Marshal National Bank, the Commonwealth Scientific Corporation, and Jahn-Strades, Ltd. as well as on the boards of Shenandoah University, the Hill School, Skowhegan School of Painting, and Choate-Rosemary Hall. John Archbold received the Order of the British Empire and the Order of St. Olaf from Norway. In 1989, Archbold donated his beloved Springfield Plantation and adjacent estates to Clemson University to create the Archbold Tropical Research Center and received an honorary doctorate from Clemson the following year.
His first wife, the former Elizabeth Brown died in 1939. His 1947 marriage to the former Lucie Seronde ended in divorce. His third wife, Betrande Benoist died in 1966 and his marriage to his fourth wife, the former Phoebe Wildman van Buren, ended in divorce. Archbold had four daughters, Anne Collins, Moira O'Connor, Schellie Archbold, and Jennifer Archbold.
John Dana Archbold died of congestive heart failure on November 29, 1993 at his farm in Upperville, Virginia.
Information for this biography can be found in the biographical materials folder in the papers.
3.5 Cubic Feet (consisting of 89 folders in seven document boxes; three folders with approximately thirty photographs and one scrapbook; four oversize folders with three maps and reports; and seven reels of 16 mm motion picture film.)
English
John Archbold had a distinguished career as an agriculturalist, sportsman, philanthropist, engineer and conservationist. Beginning in the 1930s as a plantation owner on Dominica he developed a strong interest in tropical agriculture and ecosystems. He sponsored efforts to develop economically viable products for the island and supported research of its fauna and flora. As part of these efforts he donated part of his plantation estate to the Nature Conservancy in 1975 and in 1989 another part to Clemson University to use for the Archbold Tropical Research Center. Beginning with material documenting plantation operations during the 1940s-1960s, the papers document Archbold's many efforts to promote new crops and products as well as tourism. This lead to research sponsored in conjunction with a number of institutions including the Smithsonian and Clemson. The papers include copies of research concerning Dominica and its environment-and also include a variety of publications relating to the topic. There are also records documenting the Archbold/Springfield plantation operations and its donation.
The Archbold estate donated the papers to Clemson University in 1996.
Cameron Warren prepared this register in 2003 as part of work in History 893 Archives Practicum with further editorial work done by Michael Kohl and processing help from student assistant Christine Mollineaux in 2004.
The conversion of this finding aid to Encoded Archival Description format was made possible with a grant from the South Carolina State Historical Records Advisory Board in 2009-2010. The finding aid was prepared for encoding by Kristi Roberts.
Part of the Clemson University Libraries Special Collections and Archives Repository